Schaeffer Elementary students say goodbye to their school forever

First grade teacher, Tara Russell says goodbye to Allison Harris on the last day of school at Schaeffer Elementary in Camp Hill Tuesday, June 7, 2011. K-2 students will be moving to Hoover Elementary next fall.
JOHN C. WHITEHEAD/The Patriot-News

First grade teacher Tara Russell calls Schaeffer Elementary School her “storybook land,” a magical place where everybody’s happy.

She has been teaching there for 22 years, and got teary Tuesday when thinking about the last day she will spend there.

After 82 years of housing Camp Hill students, Schaeffer Elementary closed for good Tuesday. The young students in kindergarten through grade 2 will go next year to Hoover Elementary. The Hoover students in grades 3 to 5 moved earlier this year to the renovated Eisenhower Elementary, attached to the new Grace Milliman Pollock Performing Arts Center.

Hoover is being spruced up and adapted for smaller children so it will be ready in the fall.

A task force is mulling over what to do with the Schaeffer school and is expected to make recommendations to the school board this month.

“It’s such a beautiful building, as you approach it from the outside,” Russell said. “The unique historic structure with the lions in front, the apple tree Johnny Appleseed helped us plant years ago, the flower gardens the kids planted.”

Teachers and students said the move was bittersweet.

First graders Paige Richter and Ellie Goodwin said they’ve learned about fractions, presidents, shapes, time and art there in the past year.

At the same time, she said, it will be good to have a separate cafeteria and gym so they don’t have to push tables out of the way to get exercise.

Richter said she went to a father/daughter dance at Hoover Elementary and thought her new school will be “really cool.”

“The best thing is we have a good class and we have a lot of friends,” she said. “We don’t really want to move, but it seems like it will be a great opportunity.”

Second grader Lily Jordan will be graduating to Eisenhower next year as a third grader, and she is excited. She said she visited her new school.

“It was really big, with three floors, the science area was really cool,” she said. “The best part is the performing arts center. I was kind of jealous.”

Kindergarten teacher Ami Preston was a student herself at Schaeffer, back in third grade. She said the building hasn’t changed much.

Despite the cardboard boxes piled up in half her room waiting for the move to Hoover, her classroom was still colorful, with a rug featuring letters of the alphabet and child sized chairs in primary colors.

“This is a great school, close knit, small and compact,” she said. “At Hoover we’ll have more room - a library, an art room, music space...no more teachers teaching in the hallways or the multi-purpose room.”

She said some of her kindergarten students were worried that everything would be different at Hoover, bus she assured them that the teachers would be the same, and all the teaching materials would transfer with them.

Principal Patty Craig said Schaeffer looks like a primary center from the time you walk in, with its colorful mosaics on the walls and the big “Welcome to Schaeffer” sign.

“It’s a great environment, but we’re also bursting at the seams for space,” she said. “This will be a positive move.”

Second grade teacher Coral Witmer, who was passing out bottles of bubbles to her class for going away presents, said what made the school so special was the people.

“It’s bittersweet, when I think of the people who’ve passed through these halls, and how happy and successful they are, how many are still important to the community,” she said.

Mary Soderberg, co-chair of the task force investigating the future of Schaeffer Elementary, said the group will present their findings to the school board June 20. The task force has held several public meetings to get public input.

“We heard loud and clear that the community values green space and education, but they are also concerned about cost,” she said.

Continuing to use the building as a school by leasing it out would require repairs to the heating system costing more than $300,000, she said. The school is in a low density residential zone, which would limit its commercial uses without a zoning change.

The task force has considered selling the building, leasing it, tearing it down or mothballing it.

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